Thursday, January 31, 2013

Tunku Aziz denies privacy breach claims

PETALING JAYA: Former DAP vice-president Tunku Abdul Aziz today refuted privacy breach claims when he revealed the son of a Yang di-Pertuan Besar had been courted by the DAP to be an election candidate.

In an e-mail response to Tunku Abidin, Tunku Aziz said he was not privy to what transpired between the former and Loke as he was not present during their meeting.

“If anyone had violated your privacy in this instace, it was Loke who volunteered the information to me,” Tunku Aziz read a copy of his e-mail to reporters here.

Tunku Aziz described the plan as an “open secret” in DAP and pointed out “a political party operating in the public domain is not private property”.

“You cannot hide behind a cloak of secrecy where a matter of public interest is involved,” he told the young prince.

“I am not unused in the jobs I have done to respecting privacy, but in this case what had been attempted is of national interest and has every potential for formenting a constitutional crisis,” he added.

Tunku Aziz said the offer was unprecedented in the political history of Malaysia.

“It is a conflict of interest. Imagine a scenario in which the royal father is the Ruler and his younger son, a DAP member, his Menteri Besar,” he said.

“It was a mischief making carried too far. Can we trust them to govern this country of ours?”

Last Saturday, Tunku Aziz had revealed the DAP had offered the position of Menteri Besar to Tunku Abidin. He added when the young ruler had rejected the offer, the party raised the stake and offered him a Federal seat instead.

Loke, who is also DAP’s Negeri Sembilan chief, had last week criticised Tunku Abdul Aziz over his exposé and explained the matter was stated in an informal and closed-door meeting, not to be “hebah-hebahkan” (spread around).

Tunku Abidin on Tuesday confirmed that he had an “informal conversation” with the DAP some months ago, before saying that he was invited to talk with other political parties as well.